The short films in this anthology were made during the '80s, when commercials, network logos, and station IDs made the general public aware of the new medium of computer graphics (CG). Many of the films are portfolio ... more &raquo pieces, demos, student works, and experiments in technique, without real story lines or characters. The look and even the subjects were largely determined by what was easy to do on a computer: candy-apple colors, merry-go-rounds, foil-leafed palm trees, mirrors, and twisting point- of-view shots. A few of the films hold up well, notably the video to Mick Jagger's "Hard Woman," and it's interesting to contrast the weightless, metallic dinosaurs in "Chromosaurus" with the more realistic versions in Jurassic Park. Others have aged less gracefully: "Tony De Peltrie" looks even uglier today than it did in 1985. Classics surveys only one strain of CG history; among the important omissions are Peter Foldes' groundbreaking "Hunger" (1973), the experimental works of John Whitney Sr., Ed Emshwiller, Lillian Schwartz, and Larry Cuba, the scientific films of Jim Blinn, and John Lasseter's brilliant Pixar shorts. The resulting disk is more effective as eye candy or a historical overview of one specialized area of CG than as a general entertainment. --Charles Solomon&laquo less

Movie Reviews

Terrible picture quality, great contents

carlzimmermann2 | 01/16/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"While the spots featured in "Computer Animation Classics" are without any doubt classics and highly original, the picture quality is little better then VHS. This could have been a winner. But it's such low quality in execution that it's (almost) a loser."

Mike's Review

Michael Robb | Sunnyvale , California | 06/15/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you've ever wanted to see more of those computer animations that have been played at Siggraph or are played on cable in Canada then this series of DVD's is for you. Classic animations on this DVD include:Stanley and Stella in "Breaking the Ice" Quest - A Long Ray's Journey Into Light Megacycles, High Fidelity, Glider, Peppy, Work's Ant, LBS, Pencil Test, Deja Vu, Adam Powers, Chromosaurus, The Gold Series (Benson and Hedges adverts), Botco, Eurhythmy, Brilliance, Max's Place, Opera Industriel, Speeder, Dance Of The Stumblers, Balloon Guy, A Comic Zoom, Fair Play, The Little Death, Hawaiian Punch, Tony de Peltrie, Hard Woman (Mick Jagger pop video) Metafable Different styles of early character animation are presented, going all the way from 2D lines, primitive geometric shapes, smooth shaded polygon meshes to the first texture mapped characters. However, only five or so really tell a short story.My only disappointment was that there wasn't any coverage on how each animation was made (ie. behind the scenes like The Abyss DVD etc...) although the credits do mention the hardware and software used."